NAVEEN TEWARI

The primary motivation for me is to learn.

As long as you're a company that makes profits, all's good.

Team sports is the best for bonding. These sports lessons are also true for startups. You want to be at the top of every endeavour, but you win some and you lose some. As a team, however, you always pump each other up and move forward.

When we failed and pivoted our business from mKhoj to InMobi or when we did not get any trained people with the required skillsets, as we were the first in the industry, and on many such instances in our journey, we would think of giving up every other day.

We were told that building a product company in India is impossible, as there wasn't enough talent available. But we survived, thrived, and grew despite a whole lot of frowns and thumbs down.

Access to Internet and content should be free for users which can get accommodated by advertisements.

When I started InMobi, I was on the road raising funds. I faced 20 rejections. But when I got the funds, they came from best venture capitalists.

Our offices across the globe may not be very similar in terms of the way they look, but they are very similar culturally.

A lot of coordinated approaches are required to make a global operation work.

We knew we had to think global and think big. Most companies that are emerging don't do that.

After multiple failures, when I tasted success, I was at my creative best - the 'jugaadu'-best.

One of the challenges of having exceptionally high quality talent is that they're constantly restless, and they're constantly on the lookout for opportunities.

I know, it sounds generic and is a cliche, but coming from a middle class family in Kanpur, it was always the neighbourhood opinions which mattered.

Our business is strong and enjoys high margins.

Bengaluru's traffic does not allow scope for cycling regularly, but I brave the roads occasionally and take the cycle out to work.

Capital never builds great products.

We started paying everyone 100% bonuses. We removed any sort of performance management system where you put down your goals for the quarter, or the year, then try measuring against those goals because when you are dealing with innovation, that has no meaning.

You get to learn so much while working in another country.

InMobi is passionate about pushing the limits of business and mobile technology.

NestAway is a disruptive product creating a win-win opportunity, not just for direct stakeholders like owners and tenants but for the society at large by making cities safer, especially for young women.

Advertising has to be contextual, as the potential in 'push' marketing is fairly limited and is largely viewed as spam. Thus there is a need to get into 'permission' marketing and 'pull' marketing to deliver value to marketers.

However hard you might try, you can never understand a market like a local person would.

Nasscom has a big mandate - a lot of things come under their umbrella.

I realized that the journey of entrepreneurship can often be a lonely one. Not everyone wants to believe in or support your vision, and every entrepreneur faces this moment of truth. It's hard to walk away but harder to persevere.

We have the capital, the resources, and the technology that we need to build a mobile advertising platform across the planet.